MVC & OVC Road Warriors

(St. Louis, MO) – A funny anomaly happened this week as the Missouri Valley and Ohio Valley Conference scores were coming in. As I sat at the Vadalabene Center on the Southern Illinois Edwardsville campus watching the Cougars drop a home game on Wednesday, and as I sat at Spartan Hall on the campus of Missouri Baptist University, announcing the Spartans’ home loss to Williams Baptist, it dawned me that the ‘home court advantage’ isn’t as pronounced in some leagues.

During this week’s mid-week games, OVC road teams won five of the six games. Conversely MVC road teams lost four of five contests. Only Tennessee Tech won at home in the OVC and only Drake was a road victor in the Valley.

But is this a trend?

Maybe.

When you look a little more closely, just three MVC teams play .500 or better on the road. Illinois State (17-4, 9-0) and Wichita State (18-4, 8-1) are a combined 7-1 in their guest appearances and Missouri State (14-8, 5-4) is 2-2. Only Southern Illinois Carbondale at 2-3 even has multiple traveling triumphs.

On the other hand, one half (6) of the teams in the OVC are at .500 or better! Three, Belmont, Jacksonville State and Murray State are over .500 and the other three, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee State and Austin Peay are 2-2, so things could change, but, but every team except winless SIUE has at least one road win, while six of the MVC teams have one or fewer positive traveling experiences.

What does that mean about this weekend’s 11 game schedule? There are some interesting matchups.

Ohio Valley Conference

All 12 teams play today (Saturday) and the play-off drive is on right now. In the OVC, the two divisional winners and the next six teams regardless of division placement, make the playoffs. Right now, Belmont (14-4, 8-0) is sitting pretty in the East, and Eastern Illinois (9-12, 1-7) and SIUE (5-17, 0-8) are basically finished. The other nine teams are battling over seven spots. Only three games separate those nine teams and just two games separate eight of the squads.

Critical Battles

Perennial West Division power Murray State (11-11, 5-3) hosts the red hot Skyhawks of UT Martin (15-8, 5-3) who have won four straight games. Those two are tied for first in the West with surprising Southeast Missouri (10-13, 5-3), winners of three straight. The Redhawks travel to Austin Peay (7-15, 3-5) where they could deal a severe blow to the Governors’ play-off chances. These are what the hockey writers used to call 4-point games. In the East, three teams are tied at 5-3 behind Belmont and fighting those West Division squads for a solid play-off position, and two of them meet today. Morehead State (10-11, 5-3) visits Jacksonville State (13-10, 5-3).

Missouri Valley Conference

With Illinois State and Wichita State running away from the pack at the top of the league and Evansville (10-12, 1-8) and Indiana State (7-14, 1-8) drifting well behind, there are essentially two races left in the Valley.

The first race is between the Redbirds and the Shockers. Those two are battling for first place and tangle NEXT Saturday. The other race is the ‘DON’T FINISH SEVENTH OR EIGHTH’ race. In the MVC, all ten teams make the play-offs with those finishing seven through 10 playing in the opening round of Arch Madness. The winners of those games earn the privilege of playing the top two teams the next day on short rest. So, if you can’t win the regular season title, the next best thing is to finish ahead of seventh place.

Of the six teams trying not to finish seventh and eighth, no team’s record is better than 5-4, nor worse than 3-6. So, virtually every game is massive.

Critical Battles

Three teams are 5-4 and two of them play on the road today. The the two biggest matchups find Missouri State traveling to Carbondale for a rivalry connection with SIUC (11-11, 4-5), and and a rivalry game between the two surprising Iowa-based schools. Northern Iowa (9-11, 4-5) and Drake (7-14, 5-4) are teams that were left for dead earlier this season, but a four game winning streak by the Panthers and an amazing turn around under interim head coach Jeff Rutter for the Bulldogs, has made this game one of the more interesting ones this weekend.

If Loyola (15-7, 5-4) lost at Indiana State, UNI won on the road and SIU could hold serve at home, the Valley would have an unprecedented situation on their hands of having five teams with 5-5 records with eight to play!

It is clearly a crazy basketball season. Road games can make or break a season.

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